India’s Foreign Secretary Ranjan Mathai will meet his Pakistani counterpart, Jalil Abbas Jilani, in New Delhi on July 4-5 to discuss a range of security-related issues and confidence-building measures. A meeting had been scheduled for late June, but was delayed following the recent political upheaval in Pakistan.
The foreign secretaries will prepare the ground for talks between the foreign ministers of the two countries in Islamabad, initially planned for July but now postponed until August at the earliest. The current talks are the second round of a process that began last year, after an almost two-year break in direct negotiation following the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks. The first round of talks last year saw a series of Foreign Secretary level meetings and a well-publicized trip to India by Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar, during which both sides expressed a willingness to engage in dialogue on eight key issues including terrorism, Kashmir, Siachen, and Trade.
However, the current round of talks comes at a time of profound uncertainty over the stability of Pakistan’s civilian government, following the Supreme Court’s disqualification of Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani earlier this month.
Both Foreign Secretaries will also be looking ahead to 2014’s scheduled withdrawal of NATO troops from Afghanistan, a country in which India and Pakistan are strategic competitors for influence and resources. The potential outcomes of the NATO withdrawal are mani-fold, and will have an impact on India as well.